Satellite Images Show Destruction in Aleppo

Astrium; Digital Globe. Analysis by AAAS. Provided by Amnesty International. Satellite images analyzed by Amnesty International and the American Association for the Advancement of Science show the destruction caused by a government strike in the Aleppo neighborhood of Ard al-Hamra in February 2013. The picture on the left was taken before the strike, and the picture on the right was taken after.

A series of satellite images analyzed by the human rights group Amnesty International and the American Association for the Advancement of Science graphically illustrate the devastation wrought upon Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, by months of ferocious combat between the government of President Bashar al-Assad and his rebel opponents.

The images, released on Wednesday, show neighborhoods scarred by air strikes and ballistic missiles, hundreds of damaged or destroyed homes and more than 1,000 checkpoints, Amnesty International said in a statement. It said it worked with the American Academy for the Advancement of Science to analyze the images, which were taken over a period of nine months by two aerospace imagery providers, DigitalGlobe and Astrium.

Amnesty said the images were the most comprehensive assessment of physical damage in Aleppo to date, and left “little question as to a significant cause for the staggering displacement of half of the city’s population: frequent bombardments, often of indiscriminate nature, have reduced entire areas to rubble.”

Astrium; Digital Globe. Analysis by AAAS. Provided by Amnesty International. Satellite images show the Aleppo neighborhood of Tariq al-Bab before a government strike in February 2013, left, and after, right.

For those residents who have remained in Aleppo, life has become dangerous and grim. The city has been divided between rebel-held and government-held neighborhoods for much of the last year, and the violence has been both fierce and grinding, with neither side seemingly able to gain a decisive battlefield advantage. The borders between rebel and government territory are often perilous, and in January at least 50 bodies washed ashore in a canal in the rebel-held neighborhood of Bustan al-Qasr. Residents said all of the dead were men who had crossed into a nearby government-held area.

The images released Wednesday focused on three neighborhoods that have been the target of government air strikes or ballistic missile attacks: Jabal Badro, Ard al-Hamra and Tariq al-Bab. For each location, Amnesty released a “before” and “after” picture to illustrate the destruction caused by ballistic missile strikes from Feb. 18 to Feb. 22.

Amnesty also released comparison pictures of the Great Mosque of Aleppo, whose minaret was destroyed by a government strike. The mosque has been the site of intense fighting between government forces and rebels, and video posted to YouTube in February by accounts associated with rebel groups provided a rare glimpse of the damage to the nearly 1,000-year-old landmark.

Astrium; Digital Globe. Analysis by AAAS. Provided by Amnesty International. Satellite images show the Great Mosque of Aleppo before its minaret was destroyed in a government strike, left, and after, right.

On Amnesty’s Web site, a visual tool allows viewers to scroll between the before and after images.

In each of the three neighborhoods, the “before” pictures show packed city blocks punctuated by occasional green parks and cut through by wide boulevards. The “after” pictures show the damage caused by blasts that punched through the tight city grid and spewed wide circles of debris.

Astrium; Digital Globe. Analysis by AAAS. Provided by Amnesty International. Satellite images show the Aleppo neighborhood of Jabal Badro before a government strike in February, left, and after, right.

Amnesty and the science association said in their statement that the destruction wrought by shelling, air strikes and ballistic missiles was “severely lopsided,” and that the lion’s share had been visited upon parts of the city under rebel control.

“Government forces have relentlessly bombarded areas under the control of opposition forces across Syria, with civilians being at the receiving end of such attacks and at the same time being subjected to abuses by armed opposition groups,” the statement said. “Satellite image analysis suggests that the destruction across the city is ‘severely lopsided’ toward opposition-controlled neighborhoods.”